1929 Play - 'A Way Out: A One Act Play'

Robert Frost’s one act play A Way Out first appeared in the February 1917 issue of The Seven Arts magazine, but its first standalone edition was published on 1929 by The Harbor Press in New York. The 1929 release presented the work independently more than a decade after its initial magazine publication. Frost was primarily known for lyric and narrative poetry, and A Way Out remained his only play published during his lifetime, making the separate edition a distinctive item within his bibliography. The 1929 Harbor Press edition was produced as a signed limited printing of 485 copies. It was issued as a slim octavo volume of approximately nineteen pages in cloth backed boards. This edition also included a brief preface written specifically for the release, in which Frost stated, “Everything written is as good as it is dramatic.” The presentation reflected the press’s focus on finely produced limited editions and positioned the play as a collectible publication for readers and libraries. A Way Out demonstrates Frost’s experimentation with dramatic dialogue and psychological tension rather than rural descriptive narrative. The play relies on conversation between characters to develop conflict, reflecting Frost’s interest in spoken language and the dramatic possibilities of everyday speech. The 1929 separate edition therefore preserved a rare example of Frost’s dramatic writing and documented his occasional movement beyond poetry into theatrical form.